Functionalist and Conflict Theories

- criticized as being highly abstract and whose emphases are on social structure and processes which are at
a macro-level.
- argued that while those two levels of analysis helps us to understand education in the big picture or at a
macro level, they hardly provide us with an interpretable snapshot of what schools are like on a day-to-
day basis, or what transpires in the classroom between teacher and students and between students and
students.

Interactionist Theories
- attempt to make the commonplace, strange by noticing, focusing their attention and observing the
everyday-taken-for-granted behaviors and interactions between students and students, and between
teachers and students. It is what conflict and functionalist theories do not notice, do not focus their
attention to, do not question that is most problematic to the interactionists.
Symbolic Interactionism
Social Interactionism
- the self as socially constructed in relation to social forces and structures and the product of
ongoing negotiations of meanings. Thus, the social self is an active product of human agency
rather than a deterministic product of social structure.
- The social self is a result of social interaction mediated by symbols, in particular, language. The
distinctive attributes of human behavior is viewed as the result of individuals’ participation in
varying types of social structures which in turn is dependent on the existence of language
behavior.
- not only interested in socialization but also in interaction. Interaction is significant in terms of:
a. development of one’s ability to think, and
b. development of one’s ability to express what s/he thinks. All types of interaction, not just interaction
during socialization, refine our ability to think which in turn shapes the interaction process.
Non-Symbolic Interaction
- the conversation of gestures which does not involve thinking. Blumer made the differentiation between
those two basic forms of social interaction, namely:
1. non-symbolic interaction which does not involve thinking, and
2. symbolic interaction which require mental processing